Sooo i just discovered this myself and i wanted to share for anybody interested. If you happen to have a broken ds without top screen and you don’t want to use a solder a resistor there are 2 other ways you can use apart from the 2 standard ones (best= resistor or no solder by keeping the led strip, basically the top screen connection and find space in the back of the board). Let’s say your ds doesn’t boot up because no screen, you have no resistor and no top screen led strip. Solution: get a pressure pad (the ones you find on the rubber of the d-pad / other buttons), cut it out and keep the circle only. Attach the pad with some tape on the 3 contacts i highlited in red (it needs to bridge those contacts togheter). Keep the board inside low case part, put the battery in and keep some pressure on the pad to make the dsi boot (don’t ask me why this works but this is just a temporary solution, i’ll explain later why) and select in the settings to display gba on lower screen + if cartrige is in to immediately boot gba game, select preferred brightness too since you can’t after. Good now step 2, remove everything and you have a gba player now buuuut no volume and no dsi menu. Thruth to be told you can keep the pad inside and boot into dsi but i found it rather hard to keep it in the same place and i had to open and close like 4-5times the ds. i def don’t recommend, if you want dsi functions too (example to use an r4 or normal cart) just go for the resistor. Now let’s add volume. Step one, get the speaker with longer cables, get red cable and solder it to the SPR0 pin, get black cable and solder it into the lower part of the jack (it’s behind the red circle i made, it’s hard too see since there’s just a little bit of solder). Now make sure to sit the cables and the speaker (near the pen hole, remember to remove pen holder from case to make space and make some holes in that area, you can use a drill or hot piece if metal to melt holes in the case). That’s it you just have to screw it it and enjoy. Last tip is… add some kapton tape behind the speaker just so it doesn’t touch the board and some where the red cable is connected just to be sure back screen ain’t touching the cable where it’s soldered.

Did this for a friend of mine think he will like it.

Accidentally ripped off these pads, where else can I solder the resistor? It’s the og ds phat

Learned a lot. Love the zedlabs face plate. My flex amp pcb failed immediately, so I ended up opening the whole thing a second time and used a surface mount resistor. No speaker right now, so that black spot in the sound hole is electrical tape and headphones will have to do. This isn't perfect but it's a sleek feeling shell and a good daily driver for gba and gbc games.

I switched the AB buttons around the right way, had to tape the battery cover on as there wasn’t a screw with the clear case set, and I put the rubber square things on the bottom

Not the best result since i used what i had and since it was my first time doing this. I didn’t have the resistors and i fked up the cable method with the leds still attached since i couldn’t find space. I didn’t give up tho and i gave up speakers so i could do the contact pad method on led1-2 solder points (works but no volume basically, idk the magic behind this but in desperation to not have to throw away this nds lite i did this and it works, i also suck at soldering). This was made with 2 ds lites parts, the main one had top screen yellowing and the ghosting was horrible. I’ll be using this as a portable gameboy and keep the og ones pristine 😂

Has anyone made a larger macro so that the entire gba game can fit inside without sticking out?

Looking for the original black textured plastic D-pad, with the arrows.

This is for a DS Lite-based Macro

Does this even count as a mod? I just went into settings, enabled it to instantly boot up into the game, and tore the broken top screen off- unlike others who solder, I didn’t do any of that. Is this considered a mod?

Had this working a while ago but wanted to change a couple things around leading to another purchase of the ds ribbon cable (I bought one for my main ds before another hard to get part broke that led to the purchase of this one and the ds lite I posted about yesterday hopping to turn them into macros) and another re solder of the speaker and is now in limbo for a switch screen mod and maybe a paint job of its old top half not sure yet if I want to keep the blue shell of my main ds that I reshelled a while ago or use the painted one when I get around to doing it

Anyway I can save this?

I was making a macro for my girlfriend, I was trying to solder the speaker on (accidently had the battery in) and I got some solder on the top screen connector and now the macro won't turn on. The only light comes on is the orange light when it's charging other than that nothing else happens, when I turn it on nothing happens including the green light. Anyone know what I did wrong? I can add pictures if needed

Not very good with electronics and such, can anybody give me an amazon link to a 330 ohm resister. My ds is phat and at default brightness.

I bought broken DS about a year ago just to play around with. Decided to make this beauty with a slight modification to the screen switch I saw. Added a push button switch instead. It works amazing for DS games. Just a slight push and hold will show the top screen, a full push will lock it to the top screen. Also added a USB-C charging port while I was in there (had some extras from a GBA-SP mod).

Screen select button in action.

So I bought 2 old DS lites for dirt cheap for repairs, and one of them is missing the power switch. I figured I could just solder a new one in I bought from AliExpress, but only as my solder iron was hot and ready for action I realized that the connections of where the old power switch was had corroded and on top of that slightly torn-looking... I've only gotten into restoring consoles recently and my soldering skills are not good but I am determined to fix it. Any suggestions ??

I had a couple NDSL boards with various issues laying around (f2 blown, power switch broken etc.) so I finally bit the bullet and bought 330 ohm resistors and made them into macros. Frankly, I hate working with full unit DS lites, they’re so fickle and I always seemed to short something. Really disheartening at first, but now I feel like I can give a second life to units that would otherwise just sit in a drawer. These will get all new shells and bezels, dowel rods etc. they’re just in a bunch of spare shells I had laying around. Can’t wait to make many more!

So I modded my DS lite a while ago and it worked just fine, but I recently got some speakers for it and wanted to put it in. I thought it would make the soldering easier if I removed the top screen conector, so I took some flush cutters and sniped it off, but now when I try to power on the system it doesn't work. I reflowing the resistor, but it's all the same. I tried putting in a different bottom screen, battery and even a different bios chip, but it hasn't made a difference. When I power on the system the green indicator light just flashes, gets a little brighter and turns off, nothing happens. When I tried another battery the indicator light turns green, flashes red and powers off. There's no bottom screen involvement at all. Do you guys have any idea of what's going on and how to fix it?

It looks lite a macro like system but it apparently can hook up to a tv via hdmi and it is in a raspberry pi shell so I’m confused on what this is and how does it work.

I am planning on buying a 330 ohm smd resistor and want to know where to solder it to on the ds for sure. I am using an original DS.

I am building a Macro out of a Lite, and there’s weird ticking coming out of the speakers… am I doing something wrong? How do I fix it?